After mass defections from the Pac-12, there’s no telling where conference realignment will stop but the oft-speculated possibility that the Power Five will eventually morph into two super conferences seems to inch closer to reality every day.
If that structure sounds familiar, it should. It’s reminiscent of the NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL.
Such an outcome might save college sports as we know it.
Separating the few dozen true powerhouses that generate the most revenue, attract the highest TV ratings and recruit pro prospects would make it easier to professionalize them without having to do the same for the more than 1,000 other schools in Divisions I, II and III.
This isn’t such a radical idea.
When he became NCAA president in March, Charlie Baker told Sportico the roughly 520,000 active athletes in NCAA sports fall into one of two categories. The vast majority play “traditional college sports.” A much smaller group, around 10,000 athletes, play “big-time college sports.” The latter provides the labor for what generates much of a multibillion-dollar industry.
In a law review article I’ve co-authored with Marc Edelman and John Holden titled The Collegiate Athlete-Employee, we contend that asking “Are college athletes employees?” doesn’t mean much unless we know which category of college athletes we have in mind.
We suggest a multifactor question that draws from labor and employment law principles. It measures how meaningfully athletes at a college provide revenue, whether those...
Singapore authorities have charged the former CEO of collapsed crypto lender Hodlnaut Zhu Juntao with fraud, nearly four years after the firm froze withdrawals during the collapse of the TerraUSD ...